Need for Speed Most Wanted Review: A Flawed Return to Paradise

Alex Martinet has worked for Player Affinity and The Gamer Studio. He is currently attending Gavilan College and majoring in Journalism. Follow him on twitter at https://twitter.com/AlMartinet

 Published December 3, 2012 10:46 PM

Need for Speed Most Wanted is a flawed open world racing gaming that can't hit the high marks it tries to achieve.

In 2008, after consecutive failed attempts, Electronic Arts rebooted the Need for Speed franchise. Since then the popular racing series has been in the hands of other developers and has provided better experiences to consumers. There have been three different developers, but only one has seized control of the series like Criterion Games. In the third installment however, the developer’s perfect streak with the series comes to an end.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted is unlike most racing games. While most simply just give you a course to race in and set number of laps to race in. Most Wanted wants you to divert, and choose your own path. You could choose to do one of the many challenges in the game or you could race against the cops in Fairheaven, which is larger than what to believe. It’s suddle, but it’s why it has an addicting nature. The downfall of Most Wanted that eventually allows it to get caught is the poor structure, and online play.

Everything you’re going to do in the game will be in one centralized location. Fairheaven is a gigantic generic city landscape that has multiple ways of driving in. The city is densely populated and you can easily lose yourself in the city, which is why the GPS is extremely helpful. On your city map interface, you can see events you can complete in and have an on screen arrow directing you. The reason this little gadget is helpful, is because of the amount of things to do in the city.

There are eight different event in Fairheaven from you to choose from. Some are good and are some definitely not worth your time. DOHnut and Jaws are your classic pin players against cops. These modes are the only resemblance of the classic Need for speed: Most Wanted feel. The rest feel out of place because of the online play.